Common Reading: The FYE Book

The FYE common reading introduces the ideas of the University Theme to students and provides a shared experience. The book is selected through a voting process including the entire University community.

2008–09: Smashed Smashed Book Cover.

For 2008–09, the FYE Common Reading is Koren Zailckas’ Smashed (Penguin Books, 2005). WIU library reference librarian Bill Thompson provided this detailed summary.

Smashed chronicles Koren Zailckas drinking from its beginnings in childhood till its end in early adulthood. The narrative unfolds in a matter-of fact fashion with regret but without self pity, and with irony and dark humor, but without using irony or humor to distance herself from the path she chose for herself.

I DRANK THROUGH COLLEGE, TOO, WITH AN APPETITE THAT HAD ME DRINKING RUM by the half-liter bottle, until I couldn't squelch the impulse to unload my secrets to strangers, or sob, or pass out wherever I happened to be standing. I drank until I'd forgotten how much I had already drunk, and then I drank more.

While Smashed is a cautionary tale, Zailckas does not demonize drinking. She recounts her own drinking as her way, and a sometimes amusing way, if an ultimately self destructive way to negotiate life. Given a choice of being drunk or not, in most situations she chose to be drunk—and in many of those situations things turned out badly. She loses her virginity while in a black out, she ends up in a hospital emergency room with alcohol poisoning, she finds herself breaking into houses. Though Smashed is about a love affair with drinking and its aftermath, the book is not only about drinking. It is also about coming of age on a large college campus, about the challenges and questions faced by young people trying to figure out what it means to be an adult and about the inadequate resources our culture provides for meeting those challenges, answering those questions. For Smashed not only describes Zailckas' usual state during her high school and college years, but also describes the broken educational culture she found herself in. Smashed raises as many hard questions about high schools and universities and the priorities and way of life they encourage (no matter what their public relations say).

According to Associate Provost for Undergraduate and Graduate Studies and FYE Coordinator Judith Dallinger, the book fits perfectly into the 2008-09 University theme "Health and Wellness: Challenges and Responsibilities" and should serve as "an eye-opener to the realities of alcohol abuse and misuse."

"Western's core values of personal growth and social responsibility serve to educate our campus community about not only wellness, but also acting as a responsible citizen, which means looking out not only for ourselves, but others as well," she said. "Smashed" illustrates how important it is to be vigilant about our health and well-being and not be lured into a culture of reckless abandonment where the consequences can far outweigh any benefits."

Resources

Archive

We featured these books in previous years: